March Calendar Girl

Hello and welcome.

Apologies for my long absence - I've been busy sewing for a Spring craft fair so I haven't been doing much paper crafting lately.

I have managed to complete a couple of projects, so here is the first of two very quick posts, the first being my March Calendar Girl...

March 20th was the first day of spring here in the UK and I wanted to reflect this with my colour palette, so I chose yellow and green to represent the daffodils and primroses coming in to flower in my garden.

I'm still on my quest to do a bit of stash busting this year and have used a Dovecraft chip board frame, some of  my miles and miles of ribbon, a couple of random blooms and a wood veneer bird. The stamps are from Studio G.

Better start thinking about my April Girl ... hmmm

February Calendar Girl

Hello and welcome friends!

I may have been away from blogland for a little while but I have been doing some crafting!

Mostly I have been altering tags, here is my February Calendar Girl tag, and I will post my February Tim Tag later in the week.

It being February it was inevitable that my Calendar Girl would have a Valentine's Day theme, but I decided to steer away from the traditional red and pink colour palette and go for black and white with some pops of red.

If you follow my blog you are probably aware that my crafting resolution for 2014 is to use up some of my stash rather than just collecting it. I've always tended not to use things, thinking that I should save them for a "special" project, but I'm making a real effort to get past that mental block and use my goodies if they work on a particular project .

The background is a white cardstock tag  (I used the Julie Nutting doll stamp packaging as a template) covered with Echo Park Yours Truly Love Notes paper which I stamped with a Craft Stamper (CS) freebie grungy heart stamp. I then randomly rubbed white acrylic paint over the tag with my finger to push the design right into the background. The edge is inked with Black Soot DI, but this reacted with the white acrylic to create a greyish smudge so I used another CS freebie, grungy border stamp and Jet Black Archival to stamp a random border. I used a black Sharpie to soften the squared off edge of the stamp.

The doll was stamped onto Neenah white cardstock and coloured with Copic markers. I made the mistake of stamping the image with Jet Black Archival ink, and even though I dried it thoroughly the stamped image has bled slightly where the Copics have touched it. Note to self - buy a black Memento ink pad!

Her dress is paper pieced from a Papermania 6x6 paper stack. I chose papers with the same design but with the colours reversed to emphasis the frill on her skirt. I used a coat of matte medium to seal her dress and then added shading with a black Pitt Big Brush pen. Some tiny red gems completed her outfit.

The gem swirl was made using a Bazzills InStitch'z template and some black Papermania Gems.

The heart border at the bottom is some decorative tape which I bought on-line thinking it was washi tape - It is actually a fairly glossy adhesive tape but it looks OK here. The LOVE bingo card is a Kaisercraft Miss Match stamp, stamped on white cardstock. The gorgeous red velvet rose is a Making Memories Vintage Hip Finding (a mega bargain from TKMaxx - I got 4 sets of these (two roses and three vintage style buttons) for about £3!) The black acetate flourish and heart are K&Co Elegance Die Cuts. I am using October Afternoon's Remember When calendar stamps for all my Calendar Girls, as each month is written in a different font, which I thought would add a bit of interest to the tags. February is stamped on a Memory Box Bistro Label die cut which has black inked edges.  You can see from the supplies I've used that some of this stuff has been in my stash for years - at last it is getting an airing!

Thank you for taking the time to visit - happy crafting!

January Calendar Girls

Hello crafting friends and thank you for visiting.

I recently did an " In the spotlight" interview over at Our Creative Corner (OCC) (it's here if you want to read it), one of the questions was, "If you have lost your Mojo, how do you go about getting it back?"  Well, to be honest my Mojo went AWOL at Christmas and I've been in a bit of a crafting doldrums ever since. So, true to my interview response I've been looking around for sources of inspiration - and sometimes you get inspiration when you least expect it! - I recently picked up a copy of Creative Stamping magazine (mainly because I was drawn to the knife, fork and spoon freebie stamps - sad - but true!) A quick flick through the mag left me a bit disappointed - but then I'm not really a card maker - until I came across an article from the DT at Ali-Craft showcasing the Prima doll stamps - and then... Ding! - a light bulb moment and my personal 2014 challenge was born.

I am setting myself a "calendar girls" challenge - no silly, not the naked WI with strategic cakes style Calendar Girls, but a monthly themed tag featuring the Prima doll stamps  (or stamp singular - in my case!) I have also made the resolution to make a mega effort to use up some of my stash, so the current challenge over at OCC is perfect to get my newly returned Mojo back in working order!

The challenge is "No more shopping sins" (click on the link for details) and is an opportunity to use up some of the stash that's gathering dust in forgotten boxes and to confess your stash shopping sins and make a clean start in 2014.

So here is my January Calendar Girls tag...

I chose cold colours and a snowy theme to reflect the chilly weather we can have here in the UK in January.

It was fun pulling together various different stamps to make my cluster of embellishments - and of course I have unearthed some I'd forgotten I'd got!

So - to confess my stash shopping sins - I am a terrible sucker for a "bargain" - if it is vastly reduced in a sale bin and I think I may have a use for it at some point it will - almost inevitably - end up in my shopping basket!

Case in point with this tag - the self adhesive fabric ribbon and co-ordinating brad were in a sale of Dovecraft Christmas lines three or four years ago and have not been out of the packet until today.

Talking of ribbon - I just LOVE printed grosgrain ribbon - can't resist a pretty ribbon - OMG I'm SUCH a girl!

The Papermania ticket stamps were reduced to £2 in my local craft shop, the clock stamp was a freebie on a Creativity Magazine - can't resist a "freebie"!

The snowflake rub-ons (part of a set of glitter snowmen) were in a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offer at The Works, again three or four years ago.

I must also confess that the Cuttlebug Swiss dots embossing folder had its maiden voyage in the making of this tag - and I've had that for donkey's!

Then there's the patterned paper - you know how that calls to you from the racks in the craft shop... so I'm pleased to be able to say that I have CUT INTO FOUR - that's FOUR, people, - different pieces of patterned paper from FOUR different stacks in the making of this project! (I needed a lie down with a cold compress afterwards mind you!)

Those of you who know your way around Julie Nutting's doll stamps for Prima will know that this is NOT one of Julie's designs. I had great fun (which really took me back to my childhood!) designing and making suitably warm attire for my January Girl.

I started by stamping the doll stamp (Doll No.2) on to white Neenah cardstock, loosely cut out my image and coloured in the face and neck with Copic markers.

I then stamped the image again on to copier paper and drew my "warm clothes" design over the top of the original image. 

I cut the pattern pieces out and used them as a template for making the finished clothes from patterned paper.

The new clothes were then glued over the top of the original stamped image and details such as creases and buttons were added with a fine black Pitt artists pen. A coat of matte medium made the surface of the finished doll non-porous and allowed me to add shading with Pitt Big Brush india ink markers.

                                                                                                                                                                

The final touch was to add a generous coat of Dimensional Magic (Glossy Accents equivalent) to the spotty wellies to give them a lovely "bang on trend" shine. Oh yes and those are supposed to be fluffy earmuffs - in case you were wondering :0)

So there you have it - my sins confessed and my project completed - and a head full of inspiration for February's tag too...

Wow - that was a long post - thanks for sticking with me - let me know you came and I'll try and catch up with you soon.

Hugs